MBB touches down, now stuck in traffic
https://twitter.com/mark__snyder/status/839857470935871489
can be a real bitch during the morning. They flew into DCA right?
They not have had much choice, considering the last minute arrangements that had to be made to get them there at all.
Dulles is the fucking worst.
totally should have flown into DCA instead of DCA
DCA is super busy every morning and only has 2 active runways and constricted airspace due to security restrictions. They probably couldn't get a flight plan into there for a last-minute charter given all the morning commercial traffic.
For reference, DCA had 45 arrivals and 46 departures between 9 and 10 AM on two runways. That (by the book) would be more than 100% runway utilization uptime - realistically, they easily had departure lines extending past the hour into the next given that Air Traffic Controllers usually have ~2m seperation between flights.
Dulles had 33 arrivals and 36 departures on 4 runways in the same stretch with no controlled airspace interfering with air traffic.
Someone on BTN says you can't fly charters into DCA, only IAD.
That sounds wierd - they allow general aviation and offer services for it; maybe charters for whatever reason somehow can't.
[EDIT] Upon further review, it seems that you need to get security approval to fly into DCA, and you must file for this waiver within 24 hours of travel. Even if a charter operator might normally otherwise try for that waiver, they couldn't have gotten it in this case even if they had wanted to.
Two hour break between MSU/PSU and Indiana/Iowa. Seems like it would have been a perfect slot to accomodate the situation without creating too much inconvenience for anybody else. Now they're screwing over Illinois and all the fans if they change it last second.
Way to go B1G!
That's hard because of the ticket set up. You either have tickets to the afternoon session or the evening session. It would be kind of difficult to empty out the stadium that quick in time for the evening session if the played in between. Easiest thing is to swap the MSU/PSU game with us.
seems like plenty of time to get the 100 or so people out of the stadium.
There was no two-hour break. At a minimum, you need about 25 minutes to prepare between games: the earlier game has to clear the court, you need to get the officials for the second game out, they need to check to make sure everything's in working order, they have to get all of the equipment out -- and then you have to have time for the teams to warm up, too.
At best, there was a 1:10 break, and that's assuming that MSU doesn't take PSU to overtime. And even the minimum 25 minute gap after a hypothetically rescheduled Michigan game would mean that fans would miss the start of the Indiana / Iowa game -- it takes closer to 45 minutes minimum to turn over an arena. (NCAA tournament first-round games sometimes get scheduled this way, where the gap between the two sessions is too short. I've missed the opening tip at least once, standing outside an arena waiting for them to start letting people back in).
Swapping games might have been an option -- but put yourself in the shoes of a PSU fan. You'd be livid that your team lost 2 1/2 hours of rest due to something beyond their control. (You'd also have bigger issues). Or, put yourself in the shoes of anyone who is still hoping MSU can choke away an NCAA tournament berth -- you'd rather they take PSU's best shot. :-)
A better option would have been finding a charter company that has spare airframes available in case of a problem. Unfortunately, hindsight is always 20/20. We'll see how much to blame Michigan if something similar were ever to happen again.
Play the tournament in DC they said. It'll be fun they said.
To be fair, it isn't a walk in the park doing it at MSG next year either.
Jamie and Stoney were talking about this during the morning show. I'm in agreement with Jamie and am not a fan of it. The B1G Championship game is always the last Sunday game with all eyes on it. Moving it up a week will be weird. I just prefer they leave it.
No way. That tweet was at 10:16am. I can't imagine the team or Beilein would be comfortable playing at 12pm when they're not even at the arena yet.
That being said, I have no idea what time the team normally arrives before a game, so I might be full of crap.
Hopefully, this means they can play later...can't imagine having their 24 hours and THEN playing a basketball game.
Warde Manuel said he will talk to Beilein and Big Ten once they get here and assess whether U-M can play at noon as scheduled. Not here yet
— Mark Snyder (@Mark__Snyder) March 9, 2017
thanks again Delaney!
The Big Ten admin/organizers can certainly be held to blame for lack of preparation and contingencies, and Warde could possibly be rightly critisized for not pushing them to be more accomodating.
To be fair, the BB team and their organizers also share fault for scheduling their travel for less than 24 hours from a major event. I have frequently gone to conferences and work events around the nation and always tried to arrive a day in advance of the beginning just in case some buffer time is needed. Very rarely did I ever purposely try to do same day (< 24 hr) activities unless it was critical, and even in those cases I was lucky not to be delayed.
like, you know, classes and stuff?
The B1G held out for a long time, but eventually joined the money/exposure crowd by hosting a conference tourney. If the ACC, SEC, B1G, gave a crap about classes, there would be no tourneys -- teams that are seeded #9 and lower have to be there all week (games started on Tuesday), if they win just a couple games.
Personally, I'd be fine with bagging the thing and going to have 20 regular season games instead of 18, but that's not going to happen because of $$$$$. So once you've decided to hold a conference tournament, you've decided school / classes comes second. That's reality. Plan accordingly.
I was responding to the criticsm of Michigan deciding to wait to fly into DC.
If clases were a priority for the Big Ten and NCAA (which they SHOULD be, but that is a different matter), then none of this would be done during periods when classes were in session.
They may not be a priority for the Big Ten or NCAA, but they are for Michigan, which is why we fly the night before.
that's a stupid rule.
It's a little different planning for contingencies when you are an individual at the whim of air travel problems. It's different when it is a group that is chartering a flight. Yes, problems can and do happen to teams with charter flights, but the few instances of such problems as compared to the thousands of team flights that happen every year indicate that leaving the day before the game was not an inappropriate schedule. Especially when there is a chance to miss so much class time over the month of March.
that means you're taking them out of class for another day. Everyone wants to cry about how a fuller football playoff is too much impact on student athletes ("think of the children"), but it's the atheletes of MBB, WBB, and other sports with weekday games that get yanked out of class WAY more than many of their student athlete peers.
Not trying to make this is a soapboxy reply, but I do trust the athletic department has a good sense of what their travel schedule should be. I'm on 2+ planes a week, travel > 80%, and sometimes meetings get pushed back due to travel challenges. For teams/people with as much travel as is required in a full season, that much lost time for travel buffer isn't realistic.
I eagerly await our brave AD standing up to the B1G on this one and letting everyone know what incredible BULLSHIT this is for our team. I'm sure he's going to unload with both barrels in a press conference on just how wrong this is and that the game time MUST be changed or we're not playing.
Oh wait - no I'm not. I actually expect him to issue a formal apology on M's behalf for being such poor travel planners and not getting their on-time like evreyone else.
Warde should just sic Harbaugh on Delaney....
that would be EPIC
I agree that Warde needs to go to bat for the team in this and similar instances. However, is throwing a fit about it in a presser the most productive strategy? It would certainly be more effective in making the B1G look bad, but I don't think that helps UM a lot. Warde has to work with the B1G often and burning all the bridges everytime could have some negative impacts for UM down the road as well.
You are the most pessimistic person I have ever seen.
has BLOWN this..Complete Fiasco and couldve been fixed YESTERDAY with PROMT action
Just figured if you're gonna all caps it, ya know?
That was 100 years ago.
Amen. Texas ran/runs the Big 12, and that conference has disintegrated over the last decade, and soon may not exist at all.
Conferences have to be cooperative these days. One school doesn't get to unilaterally run the show.
To be clear, not saying an AD sholdn't stand up for his school.